After the Lockdown
by How Like a Winter
Summary: A moment between Ben and John following the lockdown. "Enough time with these newcomers had already introduced me to their unpredictable behavior, and for all I knew, he was preparing to knock me out and drag me back into that cell." A little slash.


Born to a teenage mother on May 30, 1956, he grew up in multiple foster homes and never knew his father. His mother, Emily, later told him that he'd been "immaculately conceived." None of these foster homes sounded altogether pleasant, for he was removed from several due to suspicions of abuse, and police later arrested one of his "fathers" for child molestation. As an adult, he eventually located his real father, who pretended to bond with his long-lost son only to steal his kidney. Understandably depressed by this point, he attended group therapy and formed a relationship with a woman he met there, and she convinced him to stop stalking his father. However, when his father eventually asked him for assistance and he agreed to lend a hand, Helen left him to a life of solitude. Later, while attempting to prevent his father from hurting anybody else, his father shoved him out of a building. He fell eight stories and suffered injuries that irreversibly paralyzed him. In an effort to prove that nothing could hold him back, he intended to embark on a walkabout, a wilderness adventure in Australia said to encourage self-discover, but officials denied him admission due to his paraplegic state. Lacking a father, the woman he'd loved, and the physical ability to achieve just one small goal, he was, in short, utterly lost. Defeated, he boarded Oceanic Flight 815 in Sydney, Australia, planning to return to a nowhere job and a life alone.

It amuses me now, looking back on it—here I thought _I _was the poster child for misery. But then on September 22, 2004, Oceanic Flight 815 crashed and when he awoke on the Island, for the first time since his father tried to kill him, John Locke stood. He got up and he walked on his own two feet like everybody else who survived the impact. As people ran around screaming, the flames licking higher, John Locke stood. For the first time in his wretched life, something actually went his way, and I imagine that must have shocked him quite a bit.

Well, he and the fools with which he shared the flight weren't aware of my presence then, but eventually his little group captured me. They locked me up within an armory inside one of the Dharma hatches, and none of them trusted me in the least, no matter how clever my lies. The Iraqi with them suspected my falsehoods the most, but others among them visited the hatch from time to time, if only to find some reason to slap me upside the head. They had sob stories of their own, of course; everyone does. Yet each one somehow assumed that they needed to immediately escape the Island and return to their former lives.

Here's a little secret: they didn't. Like I said, everyone had their own pathetic tragedy awaiting them at home sweet home. And among all of those desperate passengers, only John Locke recognized what foolishness a return trip actually would have been, had they been able to make one.

I suppose that this realization shook him somewhat. No doubt regaining one's ability to walk after resigning to a lifetime of paralysis impacts the mind overwhelmingly. Perhaps that's why the man of no faith at all became a man with more faith than I'll ever see again on this Island, and how he was driven to act so strangely on the day that the hatch experienced a lockdown. Do forgive me for wandering from the topic at hand. I admit that my state of mind, as well as John's, is rather unsound at the moment. Such an encounter as we had would rattle even the most stable of people, I assure you.

When the hatch initiated the lockdown, all the doors closed as the alarm rang out. John managed to wedge a metal bar underneath one before it completely shut, and asked me to help him pry it open. We strained against it using whatever tools we could locate before propping it up further with a toolbox. John attempted to crawl underneath the door — a poor decision, he soon discovered, when the metal door crashed down on his legs, spikes and all. So ironic, how a few days before he would not have felt the blazing agony at all.

After that, he begged me to punch in the code and press the button that reset the alarm, and I did, though told him otherwise. The door retracted and released its grip on John, the lockdown over.

Just moments before the lockdown, he'd been shouting at me to shut up, as I incessantly repeated my questions as to what the hell was going on. Then, shaking from relief at escaping from the pain of one's legs being crushed by metal, he grasped my arm and thanked me.

I predicted exactly the thoughts that ran through his head; how could I not have? _He could have left me here, or killed me, as I was defenseless. He knew he'd be locked back up again the minute I no longer needed him._

I admit that I lingered, purposely waiting to indicate to John that I had not, in fact, run away, so his relief at seeing me there again would be all the greater. Clearly, that was where I miscalculated — his dazed mind broke under the strain of not knowing if I would flee or not, or even if I'd take advantage of his weakness and kill him right there.

"You came back," he gasped, voice cracking slightly.

Clad in rags, bandages, and bruises, I approached him where he lay on the floor of the hatch, crawling because his legs were useless once again. "What'd you think, I was gonna leave you here?" I kept my tone casual, bending over his injured form. He started to say something, but instead panted for breath and shook his head. I asked, "Can you stand?"

"I don't—" he began, but must have overcome his physical weakness, because he followed this up with, "I think so." As I lifted him up, he cried out as his leg throbbed, and rested his head on a wall for a minute with one hand on me for balance. Then he grabbed my shoulder with his other hand and said, "Thank you." I expected him to remove his hand then, but he gripped tighter, his eyes fixed on me.

I nodded and "You're welcome, John," and forced a smile. Enough time with these newcomers had already introduced me to their unpredictable behavior, and for all I knew, he was preparing to knock me out and drag me back into that cell.

Finally, he released my shoulder, so I led him over to the couch and propped his feet up on two pillows, apologizing as he gasped in pain. As he rested there, chest rising and falling more regularly now, his eyes still roamed my face. "Henry—" He leaned forward, closer than anticipated, and I froze. "Thank you for not leaving me."

Certainly the agony in his legs caused him to hallucinate that he gazed into perhaps Helen's eyes rather than my own. But whatever the reason, with every word, his lips brushed slightly against mine. I shuddered. His eyes glittered with something unfamiliar and all instincts demanded that I recoil, but John's grip on my wrist prevented me, and I feared the consequences of angering this obviously-disturbed man. "W-what are you doing, John?"

"Forgive me for not trusting you."

"John, please—" Ignoring me, his lips molded against mine, muffling my plea. The hand not crushing my wrist brushed back my hair, his hot breath on my tongue.

Now his hands dug into my wrist so hard that I gritted my teeth, and he loosened his grasp slightly then, though not enough for me to worm away. After an eternity, he broke away and stared at me again.

"Look, I don't know what—" As my words tumbled out in a rush, he silenced them with a finger to his lips, using the hand that had trapped me there. His releasing my wrist allowed me to scramble off the couch, and I rubbed my arm, red marks remaining where his fingers had clutched it. Stepping back a safe distance, I stared at him with wide eyes.

Then Sayid and Jack burst in, yelling so insistently that it yanked John out of his curious reverie. We never spoke of that day, and at times I've wondered if I imagined it — but at others I could almost swear that the marks on my wrist still remain.


End file.
